Display system

ABSTRACT

A display comprising a matrix of display pixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emit light of one of a plurality of colors and circuitry receptive of serial data corresponding to a message and at least one color for the message for converting same into drive signals. The display is used alone or in a router tally display system or a sports scoreboard system.

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/590,103,filed Jan. 25, 1996, which is a continuation of application Ser. No.08/210,784, filed Mar. 18, 1994 both now abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a display system, and in particular, todisplay systems for use in the broadcasting industry.

Display systems for a broadcast control room are known and range fromthe use of masking tape adhered to a television monitor to indicate theprogram source therefor to a basic three color matrix display which iscontrolled by a programmed microcomputer, process control computer ordata input device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The main object of the present is to improve the operation of the knowndisplay systems and to provide more flexibility during use.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved matrixdisplay which can be made in two parts to enable the visual outputsection thinner and thus more easily able to be mounted in a controlroom setting.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a parallelto serial interface between the production switcher, or any contactclosure or voltage, which is controlling the program sources to themonitors in the broadcast control room and the display system.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a time codefunction for the display system which can lock a clock internal to thedisplay system to an external time code reference.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide a routertally display system which allows the user to show real time router andtally status information directly underneath monitors in a studio.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a sportsscoreboard display system.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide local andremote messaging capabilities, while simultaneously providing sourceidentification and source status. This is accomplished by the individualdisplay's ability to store and display 32 separate messages, and receivedata from process control devices.

These messages can be of any size and not limited by the number ofpixels since the display incorporates the ability for the information toappear as multiple frames that are presented in user selected fashion.

A still further object of the RTDS system is to provide a means toincorporate additional tally channels other than those that areavailable from the production switcher and to be able to transmit thistally information throughout the system.

A still further object of the RTDS system is to provide a means forpersonnel in remote locations of following, or tracking the activity inproduction area's.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide a systemfor incorporating enough (256) separate addresses to monitor all thesources in a large facility. Multiple addresses can be used by disablingthe "talk back" circuitry.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide a means ofsupplying information, message annunciation, machine identification andmachine status to all personnel within a facility by utilizing existingwiring within the facility or via modem.

These and other objects and advantages of the system according to thepresent invention are achieved in accordance with the present inventionby a display comprising a matrix of display pixels each receptive of adrive signal for energizing same to emit-light of one of a plurality ofcolors, means receptive of serial data corresponding to a message and atleast one color for the message for converting same into drive signalsand input means receptive of an external color control signal foroverriding the at least one color for the message from the serial datafor changing the color of the message to one predetermined color. Themeans for converting also comprises an asynchronous receiver-transmitterfor receiving and transmitting serial data and means for selecting baudrates for the transmission and receiving of serial data. Theasynchronous receiver-transmitter receives and transmits serial datawith handshaking signals and has means for disabling talk backcommunications upon receipt of data. In a preferred embodiment, themeans for converting comprises a microprocessor and a clock therefor andmeans for synchronizing the clock to an external time reference. Themeans for converting also preferably comprises means for displaying themessages in a proportionally spaced font.

In another embodiment, the means for converting comprises amicroprocessor and a random access memory capable of storing a pluralityof messages with color data corresponding thereto and input meansreceptive of an external message control signal for overriding thecurrent message from the serial data and for changing the message to adifferent one stored in the random access memory.

In a further embodiment, a first housing having the matrix of displaypixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emitlight of one of a plurality of colors and first means receptive ofparallel data signals corresponding to a message and at least one colorfor the message for converting same into drive signals, a second housinghave second means receptive of serial data corresponding to a messageand at least one color for the message for converting same into saidparallel data signals and a cable connecting the parallel data signalsfrom the second means to the first means.

In accordance with the invention, at least one display each having amatrix of display pixels with each receptive of a drive signal forenergizing same to emit light of one of a plurality of colors, means fordetermining an address for the display and means receptive of serialdata corresponding to an address and a message and at least one colorfor the message for converting same into drive signals, a parallel toserial interface receptive of parallel color data from a switcher forconverting same to serial data including an address and color data andmeans for applying the serial data to the at least one display. In thedisplay system, the means for applying serial data to the at least onedisplay preferably comprises means receptive of data from a router forconverting said data into serial data corresponding to messages to bedisplayed.

Also in accordance with the invention, a sports scoreboard displaysystem comprises a plurality of displays each having a matrix of displaypixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizing same to emitlight of one of a plurality of colors, means for determining an addressfor the display and means receptive of serial data corresponding to anaddress and a message and at least one color for the message forconverting same into drive signals and means for controlling thedisplays to indicate team names, scores and game status in preselectedcolors.

These and other features of the present invention will be described inmore detail in the following detailed description with reference to theattached drawings, wherein:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a display according to the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an alternative embodiment of the displayof FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows the back of the display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a detailed view of a portion of the front panel of FIGS. 1 and2;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the circuit of the display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the circuit of the display of FIG. 2;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a router tally display system in accordancewith the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a sports scoreboard display system inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 9 shows a detail of the display system of FIG. 8; and

FIG. 10 is a more detailed block diagram of circuitry of FIG. 5.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a display 10 according to the invention having a housing 11and a matrix display 12 of three color LED lamps 13 as shown in FIG. 4.The matrix is 7 elements high and 100-200 elements in length fordisplaying messages using alphanumerics such as shown in FIG. 4 orgraphics. The font used to display the messages is a proportionalspacing font where thinner letters are formed by lights only threeacross rather than the typical five for other letters.

In an alternative embodiment according to the present invention as shownin FIG. 2, the housing of the display is in two parts including a fronthousing 11A and a rear housing 11B. Housing 11A includes the displaymatrix 12' and all of the electronics related to the display aredisposed in housing 11B so that housing 11A can be made relatively thincompared to the housing 11 shown in FIG. 1. In a preferred embodiment,the housing 11A is only 3/4" in depth.

FIG. 3 shows the connectors at the rear of housing 11 and housing 11Band includes connectors 111, 112 for data in, data out, external switchinputs ES1-ES5 and power. That backplate also includes two switch arraysSWA and SWB which are used to control the display to set it intodifferent modes. SWA is a DIP switch with 8 sections and is used foraddressing, as will be explained hereinafter. SWB is a DIP switch with 8sections used for various functions such as setting of baud rate, autoflash, talk back and color/message mode as will be explainedhereinafter.

FIG. 5 shows the circuitry for the display of FIG. 1 within block 20.

The circuit 20 includes a micro asynchronous receiver-transmitter (μART)21 which receives serial data in and which outputs serial data on thedata in and data out connectors 111, 112 via buffer 14. The μART 21communicates with an I/O circuit 22 to supply parallel data tomicroprocessor 23. Microprocessor 23 has an associated random accessmemory (RAM) 24, an associated read only memory (ROM) 25 and a clock 28.The microprocessor 23 also has two interrupt inputs for receivingexternal signals including the mode signal which will be describedhereinafter and the MSGE signal from the switch buffer/decoder 30 whichwill also be described hereinafter.

Each display is addressed by a unique address set on dip switches 16which are the 8 sections of switch SWA and which are set to a uniqueaddress (0 to 255) for the display. The settings of the switches, whichpreferably eight in number, are fed to address decoder 15 which providesthe digital word corresponding to the address. The μART 21 is able todetermine which data is directed to the display by matching the outputof the address decoder 15 with the address data fed at the serial input.

The microprocessor receives the data which is converted from serial toparallel, and based on that data, sends parallel data to a decoder 26for presenting the proper message on the display 12. Decoder 26 convertsthe data words from the microprocessor to controls for each LED in thedisplay 12 and sends the signals to a display driver 27 which actuallyactivates each pixel of the display to obtain the lighting thereof andthe proper color thereof either red, green or yellow.

When the decoder 26 indicates to the display driver 27 that the displayis to be in red, a signal RED is generated which is applied to a relay32 and to a timer 31. Relay 32 receives the RED signal and closes therelay so that the two pins SC are connected together in a closedcircuit. Moreover, the timer 31 receives the RED signal and produces asquare wave to the display driver 27 which effects the flashing of themessage on the display 12.

The switch buffer/decoder 30 has five inputs, ES1, ES2, ES3, ES4 andES5, which are the inputs from external switches SW1, SW2, SW3, SW4 andSW5. The result of a change in these switches will effect the operationof the display, depending upon the setting of the mode input to themicroprocessor. When the mode input is set for the display to operate inthe color mode by one section of switch SWB, the closing of either oneof switches SW1, SW2 or SW3 enables the switch buffer to produce thecolor signal which is applied to the decoder 26 and which overrides anycolor indication from the microprocessor and displays whatever messageis being displayed on the display 12 in the color red.

When the mode input is in the message mode, the closing of any one ofswitches SW1, SW2 or SW3 sends the MSGE signal to the microprocessor.RAM 24 has a capability of loading 32 separate messages therein and thushas a minimum of 32K of memory. When the display is in the color mode,the microprocessor always loads message number one into the display.When the display is in the message mode, the settings of switches SW1,SW2, SW3, SW4 and SW5 enable the switch buffer 30 to send data to themicroprocessor via signal MSGE to indicate to the microprocessor toselect a different one of the 32 messages that are stored in RAM. As aresult, the desired message is displayed on display 12. There are 5"switches" for a binary input (1, 2, 4, 8, 16). All 5 are active inmessage mode, 3 are active in color mode.

The μART 21 permits the user to select different baud rates on switchSWB for the input and output serial data to the display preferably inaccordance with RS-485 or RS-232. The μART is also capable of disablingtalk back communication when desired by the user by setting switch SWB.

The clock 28 not only sends clock signals to the microprocessor butreceives a signal from the microprocessor which enables the clock to besynchronized to an external reference, such as the SMPTE time code. Thebattery backup 29 powers all of the memory devices so that the loss ofpower will not result in a loss of data.

The microprocessor can also control the brightness of the display 12 byvarying the duty cycle of the clock signal delivered to the driver 27 bythe microprocessor through the decoder 26. Switch SWB can be set to makethe display flash the message at all times.

FIG. 10 shows more details of the circuitry of FIG. 5, as well as theindications of the specific off the shelf devices that can be used toimplement the circuit.

As shown therein, the RJ11 connectors 111, 112 are pass throughconnectors and thus either one can act as an input or an output. Theconnectors are connected to transmit buffers 141 and 142 which make upthe buffer 14 and apply and receive data from μART 21. The μART 21determines if the data is applicable to the display based on the addressI.D. register 15 which receives the address identification from the dipswitches 16.

The μART 21 is connected to both the data bus and the address bus as areCPU 23, RAM 24 and EPROM 25. The decoder 26 includes decoder element 260which is connected to these circuit elements.

The address is also connected to decoder portion 261 which is also fedby the switch buffer/decoder 30 which receives the mode input from themode input switch and the data from the data bus. Decoder 261 then feedsrow selector 262 which in turn feeds decoders 263 and 264 which applysignals to row drivers 271 and 272 and which feed the LED display 12.The data in signal from the receive buffer 142 is connected to thedecoder portion 265 which feeds a display driver 273 which acts as anenable for the LED display 12.

FIG. 6 shows the configuration of the circuitry of FIG. 5 for thedisplay of FIG. 2. As shown therein, housing 11A includes circuitry 20Aincluding the pixels for the display 12', the display driver 27 and amultiplexor decoder 26' which receives the external switch signalsES1-ES3 and which has the SC signals and relay 32 as well as the switchbuffer 30. All of the other circuitry 20B is in housing 11B.

The multiplexor decoder 26' allows for 8 lines to be input from themicroprocessor and converted to 16 bits of data, instead of the circuitshown in FIG. 5 where the 16 bits of data are sent directly from themicroprocessor to the decoder 26.

The display according to the present invention is shown in use in arouter tally display system in FIG. 7.

In that system, the displays 51-54 are associated with monitors 46A-46Dwhich receive their video signals from a production switcher 40 which inturn receives video signals from a router or process control computer 41connected to various video sources. Router 41, production switcher 40and monitors 46A-46D are conventional commercial broadcast devices. Thusno further disclosure is made thereof.

The switcher 40 produces parallel outputs of 32 on or off lines whichare fed to a parallel to serial interface 55 and the serial data is fedto the serial input of a computer 56 which is preferably a personalcomputer such as an IBM 386 or IBM 486 computer or optionally isconnected directly to the serial data input of display 51. The displays51-54 are daisy chained so that the data out connector of display 51 isconnected to the data in connector of display 52 and so on. The computer56 sends data to the displays 51-54 by addressing each by the sameserial data. The address is determined at the μART of each display bysetting the switch bank SWA to the desired address for each device.

The production switcher 40, or any device providing a contact closure orvoltage, can alternately be connected to the external switch input 1 ofeach display so that the production switcher can change the message oneach display 51-54 to red if so desired.

The output of the router 41 that is fed to the computer 56 can bedecoded to determine the desired message and address for each of thedisplays 51-54. Optionally the output of the router or any processcontrol device can be fed directly to the displays. Computer 56 sendsthe message along with the address to each display whereas the serialdata from the switcher 40 determines the color of the displayed message.

The displays 51-54 can also have external devices connected thereto. Forexample, tapedeck 42, receiver 43, video camera 44 and a general device45 which can be any tally requiring device, can be connected to receivethe SC outputs from displays 51-54. In this way, when the relay closesin any one of the four displays, this can be interpreted by the devices42-45 and a desired operation can follow. For example, the tapedeck maystart to run.

The tapedeck 42 may also have an output into the external switch 2 ofdisplay 54 so that a particular operation of the tapedeck 42 mayoverride the display in display 54 so that it appears in red upon thatoccurrence.

FIGS. 8 and 9 show a sports scoreboard system using displays accordingto the present invention wherein a matrix of displays 61-72 areinterconnected via their data in and data out connectors so that theyall receive serial data from computer 60.

As shown in FIG. 9, the displays have the messages including the name ofthe teams 82, 84, the current status of the game 81, which can be theinning or the fact that the game is a final score, rain delay orpostponed, and the current score of the game at locations 83 and 85.

The computer 60 controls the colors of the displays so that, forexample, for baseball the teams will be in red when it is at bat andgreen when it is in the field, and the inning is in yellow. A specialsituation can be indicated such as that in display 67 where the game isnot started all of the message characters are in yellow, or in asituation where the game is displayed or over such as in display 70, allof the message is in green.

As a result of the use of the display in this manner, a visualindication of important changes or important situations can beimmediately identified for the user.

The messages and the colors of the messages on the displays can becontrolled via computer software on the computer wherein a grid appearson the screen with all of the information and which can be changed viaentries on the keyboard of the computer.

It is understood that the embodiments described hereinabove are merelyillustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.It is realized that various changes, alterations, rearrangements andmodifications can be made by those skilled in the art withoutsubstantially departing from the spirit and scope of the presentinvention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A display system for use in a broadcastenvironment with monitors and broadcast signal sources, comprising aplurality of displays each having a unique one of 256 addresses and eachfor displaying the status via color and identifying mnemonic of abroadcast input to a monitor and means connecting the displays in anetwork for receiving real time serial data from a host computer and aplurality of broadcast signal sources, wherein each display comprises: amatrix of display pixels each receptive of a drive signal for energizingsame to emit light of one of a plurality of colors; a random accessmemory for storing a plurality of predetermined messages and color datacorresponding thereto; bidirectional addressable means receptive of theserial data from the plurality of broadcast signal sources correspondingto the address of the display, a real time message and at least onecolor for the message, wherein the addressable means has actuatable talkback signals for acknowledging receipt of serial data; a microprocessorfor reading the address data and for converting the serial data intodisplay drive signals corresponding to the real time message andselected color, wherein the microprocessor has interrupt inputsresponsive to an activation of switch inputs connected thereto via aconnector to override a real time message currently being displayed witha stored message or a color change of the real time message to indicatestatus; switch means for controlling the addressable means to disablethe talk back signals whereby data can be received by the displaywithout an acknowledgement and more than one display can be assigned thesame address when desired.
 2. The display system according to claim 1,wherein the addressable means comprises an asynchronousreceiver-transmitter for receiving and transmitting serial data atselected baud rates.
 3. The display system according to claim 1, whereinthe addressable means comprises an asynchronous receiver-transmitter forreceiving and transmitting serial data with the handshaking signals. 4.The display system according to claim 3, wherein switch means forcontrolling the disabling of talk back communications comprises amanually actuatable switch actuated prior to receipt of data.
 5. Thedisplay system according to claim 1, further comprising a clock circuitsynchronized to an external time reference and wherein for applying areal time of day time code to the microprocessor.
 6. The display systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the microprocessor displays the messagesin a proportionally spaced font.
 7. The display according to claim 1,wherein the matrix of display pixels is in a first housing and thememory microprocessor and addressable means are in a second housing, acable connecting the first and second housings, means for applying drivesignals from the microprocessor to the cables for receipt by the matrixof display pixels.